Sweet Movie

This movie is not for the faint of heart. In fact, it seems as if the creators have done everything possible to make you abort viewing it before the last reel. The vast majority of people will find it offensive, disgusting, and vomit-inducing. I find it refreshing for that very fact.

"Sweet Movie" is a vehicle designed to elicit base reactions from the audience. While the plot is not coherent, the acting not ultimately believable, and the cinematography shaky at best, nevertheless the complete package is more than the sum of its parts. Especially for American audiences, I dare anyone to watch the entire movie without at least one genuine reaction of revulsion. And that makes it almost unique.

First reaction to this challenging and astonishing film might be to pronounce it depraved or that the director is but then there is no suggestion that one will come away from this unique film a less moral person and so the accusation fails. Certainly I would like to think that for everybody there will be at least some part of this they find hard to take, indeed I don't think I would like to sit too closely to anyone who lapped up every frame. Excess of all kind on display here plus a really difficult striptease among young children. And yet, I think despite some of the more flip and seeming silliness, Makavejev is screaming out for the individual to rediscover his private and public freedom. The Soviet Union comes in for most of the kicking, but then why wouldn't it in 1974 when they were still presiding over the director's birthplace and still denying the massacre of Poles so distressingly shown in original b/w footage. Personally, having previously only encountered Otto Muehl through the films of Kurt Kren, I found his antics here the hardest to take. Here the overt element of homoerotic SM as overweight men spat and sicked up over each other seemed to go further than the catharsis of those other movies. But hey someone might find those bit's the best. Brave, bold and very well shot with a marvellous soundtrack.

I've seen people write that the only true Surrealist films were made in the 20's-30's with of course Bunuel's Un Chien Andalou heading the pack. Now "Sweet Movie" might not be a true Surrealist film, but I think an argument can be made that it's definitely surrealism that follows the path of the aforementioned classic from Bunuel. I've seen Jodorowsky referenced to describe it, and to me it was reminiscent of Fernando Arrabal's stuff, aside from the obvious shocking imagery and 70's vibe.

I've just watched it, and besides some symbolism (repressed/sheltered life vs "liberation"), I'm not going to champion the film as having some deep meaning behind it. There is an evident juxtaposition of innocence (Miss Virginity) and the surreal messed up journey she embarks on and the abuse she has to endure, along with interspersed Holocaust footage and a parallel tale of a supposedly Communist woman and her deviant activities and relationship with a fellow revolutionary. What ensues are scenes that are designed to shock, but Makavejev would probably say that he wanted to "Freudian out" with it. Despite the plethora of shock scenes, there are definitely humorous parts and it's all done in a lighthearted manner to me).

I didn't think it was great, as it was too much of an amalgamation with no strong substance, but it still works for what it was (see above) and besides being offbeat it had an inviting festive vibe (combined with the exploitation!). I suppose art-house exploitation is a proper title.

It's one of those movies, where you really question yourself how far can they push the whole thing (like the Rape in Irreversible, the "impalling" in Cannibal Holocaust and pretty much all of Saló, 120 Days Of Sodom), and why (or should it) can't that be covered with a little subtleness.

But then again, it's not a trendy shock-flick , like the Larry Clarks and the Gaspar Noés of our times. Things have their place and reason. It may get uncomfortable a couple of times, but it's always good to know that images can still affect us, other than just inducing into eating, shopping or masturbating.

Though the greatest part of this film is just how naturally strange it really is, and the great sense of humor that comes along with the whole thing. It's an extreme comedy, but they don't waste the poo jokes like the silly American Pies, they actually defecate. And, anyway, the narrative doesn't lose it's focus. The thing begins and ends as it's due.

In these times of controversial conservatives, where the J-Los gross billions on their buttocks but find it humiliating to bare a nipple on film, it's good to see that there were once different people doing different things, not really caring if their nipples were to show, if they had to drink a little urine or vomit on screen.

Dusan Makaveyev views--or viewed, back in the day--cinema as a form of Reichian orgone therapy. He sought to do to the spectator what a Reichian analyst does to a patient: take them out of their culturally accreted "armor" and return them to the Self Within. As the therapist tries to "free up" the encrusted body, so does Makaveyev try to free us up--in this picture, with a climax that violates so many taboos of civilization I dare anyone, even the most liberal-minded, not to be helplessly physically revulsed by it. This seems to be Makaveyev's aim: to push us through our ingrained disgusts to get us back in touch with the palpable physicality of being human. This means a long scene in which the eating of a meal gets mixed up with bulimic yakking, spitting, gargling, drooling, the smearing of food, and finally, ecstatically, a display of public execration.

Back to anality, to fluids, to helpless babbling and expectorating--this is where Makaveyev wants us to go: pre-art, pre-politics, back to the anal-infantile wallow in the flesh. Makaveyev, even more than Cronenberg, is the most bodily of directors. You can almost reach out and feel everyone in this movie, from Mr. Muscles, a blankly grinning black bodybuilder, to the icky slobs spitting green beans on a huge, allegorical boat. Makaveyev is Mr. Anti-Transcendence. The tingling of nerves of our imperfect bodies is all we have. Makaveyev uses shock tactics to take us back there--like cutting from a gentle romantic scene to the ultimate anti-Reichian use of the body: Nazi doctors prodding at charred corpses.

In its wild and easy mingling of the pornographic, the horrific, and the gag-reflex-destructive, SWEET MOVIE feels like one of the (willfully) freest movies ever made. Makaveyev is a master filmmaker who was most recently found, via the Internet, as an instructor at Harvard, where one of his jobs was to "moderate" and politely sit by an undergraduate audience with Mel Gibson. Times ain't what they used to be for an anarchic, anti-ideological egghead/hedonist. Dig up SWEET MOVIE and mourn the world that could've been.